If we have any sense of history and patriotism, Americans should be embarrassed about the commercial corruption of Thanksgiving. Last year, many big box retailers rendered Black Friday obsolete across much of the nation by opening their doors Thanksgiving night as early as 9 p.m. This year, several, including Toys“R”Us, Sears, Walmart, and Kmart, moved their openings up to 8 p.m.
In Massachusetts, our 17th-century blue laws provide a momentary barricade, forcing stores here to delay openings until after midnight. But as sure as you can now buy liquor on Sundays, one can see the floodwaters of materialism sweeping the last of retail store restrictions out to sea.
Comments
Amen!
While I don't like the idea of stores opening on holidays or employees in them having to report to work, it's unfair to those who need the money and can earn extra pay on a holiday. It's also a matter of freedom. The blue laws were originally religious laws and they're totally out of place in a modern secular society.
The philosophical basis of the blue laws escapes me. They deal only with retail workers and only some of those. I wasn't in retail, so I worked most of my life for a 24/7 operation. I worked every third or fourth weekend and most holidays. I rode practically empty subway cars to work on many Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings. Drug stores are open and they don't just sell drugs. The 7-11 sn open. I'd like to have a explanation of why the blue laws are fair and desirable if they apply only to a select few.
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The world isn't always fair, but that's no excuse, and I can't believe you think it is. The world *should* be fair and that ought to be the goal.
Using that phrase is just a way of minimizing someone's complaint without addressing it.
To me it's a matter of freedom. Others seem to think that sacrificing a little freedom that they never exercise is no big deal. In my opinion, restrictions on freedom should be based on sound reasoning that some real harm might occur. This doesn't come close to meeting that test.
For Who-Cares ---- One man's freedom is another man's prison. There are employees who need their regular time and pay at greedy retailers, but would treasure the moment to stay with family on the holiday. Instead they are forced to attend to nuttiness of people who are running from their own sadness and emptiness with an excursion to spend money. Keep the dollars from exchanging hands on Thanksgiving. As noted in the article, it is absolutely certain that the people who are benefitting the most are off in a comfortable space for the day, not suffering the annoyances of being a retail sales person.
That doesn't explain to me what such a small fraction of the workforce is covered by the blue laws, nor why retail clerks are so special as to deserve it.
The blue laws apply to everyone or no one, in my opinion.
AMEN!
People have been hurt in stampedes to get into these stores to buy junk that ends up in a landfill. The argument that the workers need the money does not hold water. The business isn't viable if it can't pay workers a fair wage every day.
With all the worry about American jobs, we ought to be boycotting these stores that have upped the imports from China in order to yield exorbitant salaries for the guys at the top.
Send a message that enough is enough.
I share Jackson's sentiment. That's why I make no purchases -- brick or click -- on Thanksgiving (or during the wee hours of "Black Friday").
I guess I will stay in the "Pro Choice" camp. I should have the freedom to choose whether I shop or not. And I am sure the merchants will not open early next year if the response isnt there.
What about the employees? They have no choice.
Barking up the wrong tree. It's the shoppers who create the demand, and retailers will open to fill it. if you don't like it, don't shop.
chicken and egg
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As long as there are people who want to go shopping at such ridiculous times of day, there will be retailers willing to open their doors. As a misanthrope-in-training I avoid stores as a rule, especially during such retail rushes. @timfromvt, you certainly have the choice to shop online any time you want, but maintaining that you should have the freedom to choose to go to brick-and-mortar sites anytime you want means people have to be working at those sites, and the only way to do that is if enough people feel the same way. Should that market dry up, you won't actually have that choice, because none of the retailers will consider it worth their while to open. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What I find more discouraging is that the same dedication to keeping polling places open long enough to accomodate every eligible voter on Election Day doesn't seem to exist.
The was a serious proposal several years ago for polls in national elections to open at the same time all across the country and close at the same time 24 hours later. That ran into the familiar states' rights objections, although the constitution gives Congress the right to regulate them.
Creeping early voting seems to be the wave of the future, so that makes the poll hours somewhat irrelevant. Considering the way Presidential primaries have been going, I wonder if people will eventually be voting before any candidates are nominated?
I remember discussions of it in 2004, less so in 2008, but the lack of receptiveness to voting was what I was thinking of. I believe mail-in voting is the dominant form of voting in Oregon and Washington; perhaps that will catch on more broadly. As to the primaries, has New Hampshire had theirs yet?
Bravo!
We've become a nation of merchants! Disgusting!
Shopping...money...acting entitled...these are the tenets of American religion! How dare you comit sacrilidge Derrick! I'll bet you don't watch reality TV or yearn to be in the 1% either?
My old man used to get time and a half for overtime and double time on weekends. He was a union man. I wonder if the retailers pay their workers as well?
They have to pay time-and-a-half for other designated holidays, but I'm not sure whether that law would apply to Thanksgiving and Christmas, since the stores aren't allowed to open at all.
I meant to imply that we worship money and cosuming goods rather than real religion but my earlier post was not clear. Sorry!
Don't agree w/ you often but you are dead on
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I wish there was a "like" button on this article. I signed the Target employee's petition and good for her. We have become a nation that celebrates commerce and money and nothing else. These outrageously early openings are another symptom of this.
I have worked in retail and I know it is a tough business and that the holiday season is critical. If you are a manager or someone with store responsibility you know you aren't going to get a lot of time off at the holidays. But to expect managers and even lower-paid workers to come in on the actual holiday is outrageous. You as a consumer may have a "choice" to shop, but people who are working these minimum-wage jobs have little choice to say "no" to their managers when they tell them they'll be working on a holiday. And the managers who aren't raking it in either also have no choice. Many of these comments are so ignorant and indicative of the fact that far too few of us think about the burdens of the working poor. Nobody would be harmed if the stores opened at 9 a.m. on Friday. Lots of people are harmed by these absurdly early openings.
I concur that the fervor for retail establishments to be open at dawn or at midnight of the night before is a reflection of a very unattractive need of society. However, summarily mandating that retail stores not be open at all on holidays controls one's right to do business and impinges upon individual freedoms in a manner that does more harm than good. Something more equivalent to conventional practices would seem to be an acceptable compromise.
And the harm in the law that forces stores to close for 6 whole hours is...?
I wonder how long it will be before our Representatives on Beacon Hill cave in to the merchants. Then it will be Christmas so everyone can get a head start on the after Christmas sales. Remember that they have already caved in on allowing these stores to open on Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veterans and Labor Day. Think about the last one..Labor Day..Wasn't it introduced to honor and recognize the contributions made by "workers.' So we do this by making them work. Will our system collapse if we give people some time off to spend with their families and perhaps reflect on the meaning of the day.
I don't agree with much of anything Derrick offers opinions on, but I am 100% with him on this.
good column.
It's all about the Benjamins...
I agree with one exception...You did not assign blame to the mindless morons who MUST shop constantly, like zombies.
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I can't think of one occasion that I have agreed with Mr. Jackson - but there's always a first time.
While I am normally a strict free marketer, I feel that the people most deserving of the holidays are losing them. You can bet the senior executives AND STOCKHOLDERS are enjoying their holidays with their family and friends - while someone working two jobs to make ends meet has to clean the dishes and then head right to the store to work.
Like others who have posted here - I don't shop on any holidays. A run to the drugstore for an emergency prescription has been the exception.
For those who call it a tradition with their little groups to storm Walmart, Target and the Wrentham Outlets - why not start a new tradition. Get up early and make breakfast for the people who prepared your holiday meal. You get to spend time together, eat a little more and then review the sale fliers for Friday afternoon shopping - if you feel the emotional need.
Rarely, maybe never, agree with you but you are spot on with this one. I am a capitalist through and through but taking a break 2-3 times a year to spend some time with family isn't going to hurt anyone or any business.
I think if these Big Box stores are going to destroy a national holiday for nothing but pure greed, then they should be the ones working a register or backfilling stock from opening to closing on such days. They will not because they are cowards, and cowards never face reality for their actions. These so called leaders of industry may think they have success, but success isn't measured by the house or car you drive, it is measured by those who love you and respect you. Nobody respects a coward.
Coward has a specific meaning. It's not just some generic insult. Look it up.
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I'm saddened by the lost sense of history and patriotism. It's hard to entertain the "Freedom of choice" argument. It seems to dismiss the possibility that we have a national identity that's not simply a collection of millions of individuals. To appeal to a Corporation CEO's sense of morality and decency is tilting at windmills. I certainly hope our state government can hold the line on Thanksgiving.
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If Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and maybe three or four other big retailers got together and announced they would not open on Thanksgiving, they would actually build the loyalty of their employees and customers, and not lose any business. It's the fear of being closed while another big box store is open that drives them to leapfrog each other in opening ever earlier. They collude in other respects, they could do so in this regard if they wanted to. I hope our legislature doesn't cave in on this issue in the future.
It's called competition and it's the basic building block of the free market. Business colluding to restrain competition is against the law.
I'm a wild-eyed, moonbat liberal and I'm defending competition and the free market, while the free market people are against it in this case.
The world is supposed to end on Dec 21 so maybe this is a precursor.
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